This work is by Liu Yan, also called Dezhi, a middle- and late-Qing dynasty scholar in history, geography, and astronomy. Liu Yan produced and contributed to a number of works in the field of geography, including Ji yuan bian (Dictionary of reign names), Li dai di li yan ge tu (A historical geographical atlas of dynasties), and Li dai di li zhi yun bian jin shi (Dictionary of geographical names with new explanations). Although most of his works appeared under the name of his teacher, the renowned geographer Li Zhaoluo ...

This volume contains Arabic translations of four works related to the Ottoman commercial code originally published in Turkish: The Commercial Code, Appendix, Sources of Court Judgments, and Commentary. The Ottoman commercial code and updates of it were based on the French code of 1807. The importance of the code lies in the fact that it represented a break with the tenets of al-shari’ah (Islamic law) and prepared the way for promulgation of criminal and civil codes and reorganization of courts. Publication of the translation was a project of the ...

This volume, Qanun al-Tijarah (Commercial law of Egypt), contains two printed works, the commercial and the maritime codes of Egypt. The two documents are extracted from a more comprehensive but unidentified work, possibly covering civil procedure and the criminal code. Each title is preceded by the order of Egyptian ruler Khedive Muhammad Tawfīq authorizing publication and implementation of the law. The first title, Commercial Code, includes definitions of terms and focuses on debt and bankruptcy. The second title, Maritime Code, covers ships operating under the Ottoman flag and the rights ...

This photograph, taken in 1907, shows the interior of the offices of a British shipping and forwarding company in the port of La Luz, near the northeast tip of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). La Luz, also known as Las Palmas Port, was built between 1883 and 1903 by the British firm of Swanston and Company. Strategically located some 100 kilometers west of Morocco in the Atlantic Ocean, between the continents of Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the Canary Islands was important as a coaling station for steamships transiting long ...

Don Francisco de Boria Principe de Esqvilache Conde de Mayalde Gentilhombre dela Camara del Rey Nueʃtro ʃeñor ʃu Vírrey lugar teníente, Gouernador, y Capitan General (Francisco de Borja, prince of Esquilache, count of Mayalde, gentleman of the Our Lord’s royal chamber, his lieutenant viceroy, governor, and captain general) was published in Lima, Peru, in 1617. It is a one-page decree by Francisco de Borja y Aragón, prince of Esquilache (1582−1658), a Spanish nobleman and official who was viceroy of Peru in 1615−21. The first printing press in ...

In the mid-to-late 19th century, the Russian Empire expanded into Central Asia, annexing territories located in present-day Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Tsar Alexander II approved the establishment of the governor-generalship of Russian Turkestan in 1867. General Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman (1818–82), the first governor-general, commissioned the Turkestan Album, a comprehensive visual survey of the region that includes some 1,200 photographs, along with architectural plans, watercolor drawings, and maps. The work is in four parts, spanning six large, leather-bound volumes: “Archaeological Part” (two volumes); “Ethnographic Part” (two ...

Libre appellat Consolat de mar (Maritime regulations) is a collection of maritime and commercial ordinances and decrees of medieval origin that once had legal authority. The text comes from the ancient Costumes de la Mar, of Barcelona, written between 1260 and 1270. It integrates Catalan norms as well as those from other sources, including Pisan, Genoese, Venetian, and Marsilian. The definitive writing was done in the 14th century in Barcelona, with the addition of other legal texts. The work was widely circulated. Among the numerous editions printed in Catalan, two ...

This map shows the center of Kampala, today the capital and largest city of Uganda, as it appeared in 1956 during the late colonial period. Depicted on the map are roads and streets; government and commercial buildings; schools; churches and mosques; the headquarters of the Uganda Society; and other buildings and sites. Kampala lies just north of Mengo, the capital of the Kingdom of Buganda in the 19th century, and it was selected by British colonial administrator Captain Frederick Lugard in 1890 as the headquarters of the Imperial British East ...

This broadside, dating from about 1950, is an advertisement for Osky’s, also known as Osky’s Curio Shop or Osky’s Alligator Store, a Jacksonville mercantile store that sold gift items, rare or bizarre decorative items, and goods made out of alligator skin, including lamps, purses, and wallets. The shop also exhibited live alligators and other reptiles. Jacksonville was home to many of Florida’s earliest tourist attractions, including the Florida Alligator Farm. Operating for several decades on Jacksonville’s historic Bay Street, Osky’s promoted itself through postcards ...

Joseph Ingraham was the master of the brigantine Hope, a 70-ton American ship that was designed and equipped to make the trip around Cape Horn to the west coast of North America, from there to China, and from China back to Boston. In the late 18th century, American fur traders undertook expeditions to the northwestern Pacific, where they obtained furs, which they brought for sale to the Chinese port of Canton (present-day Guangdong). There they acquired tea, silk, porcelain, and other goods for sale in the U.S. market. This ...

A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies is a six-volume translation, published in London in 1798, of the ten-volume Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes by Guillaume-Thomas-François (1713–96), also known as Abbé Raynal. Educated by the Jesuits and ordained as a priest, Raynal left the clergy and became a journalist. He published the first edition of Histoire des deux Indes in 1770, which he expanded in editions of ...

“The Man of Commerce” is a detailed map that conflates human anatomy with the American transportation system. Published in 1889 by the Land & River Improvement Company of Superior, Wisconsin, the map promotes Superior as a transportation hub and shows the routes of 29 railroads across the United States. The outline map of North America is superimposed by a cutaway diagram of the human body. The map’s metaphor makes West Superior “the center of cardiac or heart circulation.” The railways become major arteries. New York is “the umbilicus through which ...

This early map of Brazil is by Jacopo Gastaldi (circa 1500-circa 1565), a Piedmontese cartographer who worked in Venice and rose to the position of cosmographer of the Venetian Republic. Gastaldi produced maps and illustrations for parts of Delle Navigationi et Viaggi (Travels and voyages), a compilation of travel writings by the Venetian diplomat and geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557). Ramusio’s work contained more than 50 memoirs, including the writings of Marco Polo.

William H. Rease, born in Pennsylvania circa 1818, was the most prolific lithographer of advertising prints in Philadelphia during the 1840s and 1850s. This advertisement shows vessels docked in front of the engine and boiler works complex at the foot of Palmer Street on the busy Delaware River. Teams of several horses haul materials on trucks past the boiler works. Laborers work on the docks, piers, and boats at the complex. Docked vessels include the tugboats, steamboats, paddleboats, and a sailboat. The firm was established as Reaney, Neafie & Smith in ...

William H. Rease, born in Pennsylvania circa 1818, was the most prolific lithographer of advertising prints in Philadelphia during the 1840s and 1850s. This advertisement shows the four-story brick building and adjoining lumber yard on Girard Avenue above Seventh Street tenanted by Price & Harper. Signboards on the front facade read, "fancy-chair factory, steam sawmill, turning & scroll sawing, and iron foundry." Large piles of lumber are visible in the yard that extends west to Eighth Street from the factory building. A man leads a horse out of the yard, while horse-drawn ...